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Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta

Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta with spinach and sun-dried tomatoes is a delicious blend of flavors and super easy to make! Homemade pesto is a truly beautiful thing. Basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil with a bit of salt - gotta have salt - all mashed together in delicious harmony. It's glorious!! I could eat pesto on just about anything! Now, you can buy pesto ready to go, but why do that? It's quick and easy to make homemade and tastes a million times better than what you get in a jar! It freezes well too! Seriously! If you haven't made fresh pesto, you are missing out!! and we can't have that!I had some basil I needed to use up before it went south on me, so I whipped up some pesto and decided to make some sort of chicken pesto pasta dish, but....The pesto wasn't quite enough for all the noodles I made, so I added a bag of spinach to it and gave it a couple more pulses in the Food Processor
and presto - yummy Spinach Pesto Sauce for dinner and plenty of it!! Toss in some sun-dried tomatoes along with some chicken sauteed in butter (yes, butter! because it makes chicken better! it's true!) and your taste-buds will be happy as a clam at high tide!!

Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta

By Life Tastes Good
Published 03/24/2014

Ingredients

1 lb Penne Pasta

3/4 cup Fresh Basil Leaves

3 tablespoons Pine Nuts

1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated

2-3 cloves Garlic, peeled

1 (5 ounce) bag of Baby Spinach

salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup First Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces

salt and pepper to taste

Sun-Dried Tomatoes (in oil), chopped

Parmesan Cheese for garnish

Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions in salted water. Drain and set aside.

In a skillet over mid high heat, heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Salt and pepper the chicken pieces and add to the hot oil/butter mixture. Cook, without moving for about 3 minutes until the one side is nicely browned. Flip over and continue cooking until cooked through - another 3-4 minutes.

Combine pasta, chicken, and spinach pesto with as many chopped sun-dried tomatoes as you like. Garnish with Parmesan cheese and give it a taste. Adjust the seasonings as needed and enjoy!

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